Girl Connection, August 2004

Bimonthly newsletter of the Iowa Gender-Specific Services Task Force. This issue discusses girls and the impact of involvement in sports and other physical activities

A Guide for Newcomers to Agent-Based Modeling in the Social Sciences

This guide provides pointers to introductory readings, software, and other materials to help newcomers become acquainted with agent-based modeling in the social sciences. Related work can be accessed at: http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ace.htmagent-based modeling; social sciences

Goals of Public Library Services for Children

Some years ago, Lowell Martin wrote an article on cooperation between school and public libraries which he subtitled: "Or, Why Don't We Have Any?" It was not only eye-catching and provocative , but a very reasonable question to ask. A subtitle for this discussion of goals of children's services of public libraries might be: "Are We Sure We Have Any?" However, I would not do that because I believe that when conferees have heard all of the speakers and discussions planned, and when readers later have read all the papers, they will be convinced that, indeed, there are goals. If there were not, we could scarcely now all be so convinced of the importance of children's services that we would be gathered here, and there could not be the strong thread of agreement running through the presentations which, I predict, will be discernible. It is only in individual programs of service to children, perhaps only in the minds of individual librarians, that the question may not be satisfactorily answered. The most painful question is not whether librarianship has goals for public library service to children; it is whether or not each person responsible for providing that service has recognized, measurable, articulated goals for service. I think they do not.published or submitted for publicatio

Finding evidence of wordlists being deployed against SSH Honeypots - implications and impacts

This paper is an investigation focusing on activities detected by three SSH honeypots that utilise Kippo honeypot software. The honeypots were located on the same /24 IPv4 network and configured as identically as possible. The honeypots used the same base software and hardware configurations. The data from the honeypots were collected during the period 17th July 2012 and 26th November 2013, a total of 497 active day periods. The analysis in this paper focuses on the techniques used to attempt to gain access to these systems by attacking entities. Although all three honeypots are have the same configuration settings and are located on the same IPv4 /24 subnet work space, there is a variation between the numbers of activities recorded on each honeypots. Automated password guessing using wordlists is one technique employed by cyber criminals in attempts to gain access to devices on the Internet. The research suggests there is wide use of automated password tools and wordlists in attempts to gain access to the SSH honeypots, there are also a wide range of account types being probed

Solving a "Hard" Problem to Approximate an "Easy" One: Heuristics for Maximum Matchings and Maximum Traveling Salesman Problems

We consider geometric instances of the Maximum Weighted Matching Problem (MWMP) and the Maximum Traveling Salesman Problem (MTSP) with up to 3,000,000 vertices. Making use of a geometric duality relationship between MWMP, MTSP, and the Fermat-Weber-Problem (FWP), we develop a heuristic approach that yields in near-linear time solutions as well as upper bounds. Using various computational tools, we get solutions within considerably less than 1% of the optimum. An interesting feature of our approach is that, even though an FWP is hard to compute in theory and Edmonds' algorithm for maximum weighted matching yields a polynomial solution for the MWMP, the practical behavior is just the opposite, and we can solve the FWP with high accuracy in order to find a good heuristic solution for the MWMP.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, Latex, to appear in Journal of Experimental Algorithms, 200

Modeling preference time in middle distance triathlons

Modeling preference time in triathlons means predicting the intermediate times of particular sports disciplines by a given overall finish time in a specific triathlon course for the athlete with the known personal best result. This is a hard task for athletes and sport trainers due to a lot of different factors that need to be taken into account, e.g., athlete's abilities, health, mental preparations and even their current sports form. So far, this process was calculated manually without any specific software tools or using the artificial intelligence. This paper presents the new solution for modeling preference time in middle distance triathlons based on particle swarm optimization algorithm and archive of existing sports results. Initial results are presented, which suggest the usefulness of proposed approach, while remarks for future improvements and use are also emphasized.Comment: ISCBI 201

LAND MARKETS IN AGENT BASED MODELS OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/22/08.Land Economics/Use, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Television news and the symbolic criminalisation of young people

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journalism Studies, 9(1), 75 - 90, 2008, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14616700701768105.This essay combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of six UK television news programmes. It seeks to analyse the representation of young people within broadcast news provision at a time when media representations, political discourse and policy making generally appear to be invoking young people as something of a folk devil or a locus for moral panics. The quantitative analysis examines the frequency with which young people appear as main actors across a range of different subjects and analyses the role of young people as news sources. It finds a strong correlation between young people and violent crime. A qualitative analysis of four “special reports” or backgrounders on channel Five's Five News explores the representation of young people in more detail, paying attention to contradictions and tensions in the reports, the role of statistics in crime reporting, the role of victims of crime and the tensions between conflicting news frames.Arts and Humanities Research Counci